I can only tell you my experiences which might or might not be relevant since restaurant culture in the UK and the US is quite different to begin with.
In the UK there isn't so much the mid range large chain restaurants outside of a couple of chains which largely cater to the office lunch-time crowd (such as Itsu or Nandos type places), the possible exceptions being Pizza Express, Cafe Rouge, Strada and Carluccios which are well positioned in both middle class residential areas and office areas for both the sit-down lunch crowd and the evening casual dinner crowd.
I would say that the mainstay of midrange dinning is almost certainly the upmarket pub or gastropub which are often independent or semi-independently managed (they might be affiliated with a larger brewery chain, but the chain doesn't dictate things like the food they serve), and they're the sort of places which would most like to keep in touch with their customers. The bulk of their customer base is almost certainly pretty local, and has already expressed a willingness to spend money their, and being local they're also easier to entice back in with special offers.
A fairly good example would be my local which was launching a new menu back in November of last year. To trial their menu they sent an offer out on their mailing list offering a free dinner (starter and main, not including drinks) from their new menu to anyone on the list who made a reservation during that week. While it clearly cost a not insignificant amount of money to run a promotion like that (probably equivalent to $50 per head were they charging menu prices) it also gained them practice in preparing their new menu, high quality feedback on the new menu, and a certain degree of loyalty towards the establishment as a whole. The later in particular is no mean feat for the area in which I live which is both affluent and quite foodie.
In the UK there isn't so much the mid range large chain restaurants outside of a couple of chains which largely cater to the office lunch-time crowd (such as Itsu or Nandos type places), the possible exceptions being Pizza Express, Cafe Rouge, Strada and Carluccios which are well positioned in both middle class residential areas and office areas for both the sit-down lunch crowd and the evening casual dinner crowd.
I would say that the mainstay of midrange dinning is almost certainly the upmarket pub or gastropub which are often independent or semi-independently managed (they might be affiliated with a larger brewery chain, but the chain doesn't dictate things like the food they serve), and they're the sort of places which would most like to keep in touch with their customers. The bulk of their customer base is almost certainly pretty local, and has already expressed a willingness to spend money their, and being local they're also easier to entice back in with special offers.
A fairly good example would be my local which was launching a new menu back in November of last year. To trial their menu they sent an offer out on their mailing list offering a free dinner (starter and main, not including drinks) from their new menu to anyone on the list who made a reservation during that week. While it clearly cost a not insignificant amount of money to run a promotion like that (probably equivalent to $50 per head were they charging menu prices) it also gained them practice in preparing their new menu, high quality feedback on the new menu, and a certain degree of loyalty towards the establishment as a whole. The later in particular is no mean feat for the area in which I live which is both affluent and quite foodie.